21st February Deuteronomy 7 Removing Unholy Influences
If you’re anything like me you’ll probably have a few bad habits or at least things you’re tempted to do that you really know you shouldn’t do. I’m not talking about things like eating too much chocolate when you know it’s bad for your health either. I’m talking about things that lead us into the places that God’s holy people should not go to. They’re the kind of things that the modern world likes to refer to as our ‘guilty pleasures’. Things we know aren’t good for us but we like to do anyway. Perhaps it’s having a few glasses of wine more than we know is wise because it lowers our inhibitions and our sense of wisdom. Perhaps it’s about watching things on TV that we know we should avoid watching. Maybe it’s something else, having your cards read or your fortune told, consulting a medium or dipping into the shallow end of the occult (as we might perceive it). The problem is that there are many things that can easily become unhealthy influences in life that we, as Christians, should be giving a wide berth.
Despite the apparent call for an ethnic cleansing of the Promised Land much of this passage is about exactly that. It’s about removing unhealthy influences from the life of the new nation of Israel. The things that lead to a darker place where God will not be found. So God says, drive them out, don’t marry into families that don’t have the same faith as you, keep yourselves apart from the unholy things that you’re going to find in this place because you are a chosen people, holy and set apart for me (God).
The most effective way of avoiding those temptations is to remove them from the space we live in. If they’re not in front of you they can’t cause you to stumble into something you might later regret.
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Question:
Are there any influences in your life that you know you ought to remove? Are there things you do that you have a nagging sense you should avoid but haven’t faced up to? Can you them from the space you live in now?
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, would You reveal to us the unhealthy things in our lives that we need to drive out? Would You strengthen us with the resolve to do that today so that we might be drawn closer to You. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.